Lengths
by i was a controversy
Summary: /"Fiyero had asked the Governor's daughter if she, per chance, knew where her sister was-twice, in fact-and both times, he'd thought to himself: it's amazing what lengths we go to."/ Two-shot. And yes, if you ignore half the ingredients and add some vanilla and sprinkle some sugar on top and look at it in a bit of a distorted fanfiction squint, it might be a Fiyeressa.
1. The First: Before

**Lengths**

**Summary: Fiyero had asked the Governor's daughter if she, per chance, knew where her sister was—twice, in fact—and both times, he'd thought to himself: it's amazing what lengths we go to.**

* * *

**001.**

He'd said, "You're Elphaba's sister, right?"

"…Nessarose."

"Right."

And he'd stared at her.

He'd suddenly felt very out of place, standing there, having swallowed his nonchalance, his usual cool. He was standing in a library—a library, of all places—and he hadn't stepped foot in a library for years, and he'd spoken to this _person_, this girl, who—

Who was this _girl_?

"You're Elphaba's sister, right?"

"…Is there something you'd like from me, Master Tiggular?"

"No! No, it's just…you're—"

"I'm Elphaba's sister; yes. I'm sorry, Master Tiggular, but I was trying to…study…"

She'd kept such composure, her spine erect in that huge, bulky chair and her eyes slightly downcast, her dark, dark fascinating eyes with their odd sort of depth. Like he'd never really know who she was.

"…so, if you'd kindly speak with me some other time—"

"Do you know where she is?" he'd blurted without hesitation.

She'd brushed a lock of the smoothest, strangest hair he'd ever laid eyes on behind one ear and she'd inhaled and shifted in her chair.

He'd interrupted her.

"I apologize, Miss…"

"Nessarose."

Just pretend she's a girl, he'd said to himself. She is a girl. She's a _girl. _Remember? _Girls_?

"So," he'd said all of a sudden, and he'd sat right down across from her at the small study table, ever so suave, "Miss Nessarose. You're Elphaba's sister."

She had not looked amused.

"Yes," she'd said, and that composure, that practiced tolerance, had come out through a carefully crafted funnel of a single syllable, not allowing any emotion to escape.

Her eyes were like tunnels, he decided. Deep, narrow tunnels, light barely visible from one side to the other.

She was creepy, he'd decided, with that headband and those leg braces and—

"I thought you were with Galinda."

And he'd snapped out of his thoughts—he'd been _thinking_—and he'd remembered Galinda.

"Oh," he'd said. "Yes, I'm with Galinda. We just went to the OzDust a couple days ago—the dance."

He'd studied her tunnels for eyes and her headband and her face—a neatly, almost elegantly chiseled face, a face—

"You were there, too, weren't you? With the Munchkin boy—"

"Boq," she'd said, and she'd almost cracked a smile.

"Boq," he'd repeated, triumphant, at last regaining some sense of his cool self, his careless, wry grin. "You were there with Boq, in a nice dress—pink. I liked it. And then you skipped the old goat's class the next day—very naughty, if I do say so myself. Tell me; what exactly were you doing, and did you hear about the debacle—or…the _mess_ that went on in there that day?"

She'd listened to his well-rehearsed luring speech with half-interested courtesy, and she hadn't giggled at his jokes; she'd only placed her pen in a neat little pouch on the table and gathered up her few outspread papers, waiting for him to finish. And then she'd said, "Debacle," in a clear but quiet voice. "Not _mess_."

He'd looked at her, his signature clouded expression covering his face, and he'd thought she seemed quite similar to her sister, and yet so, so different.

"What are you talking about, Miss Nessarose?"

"My sister must have taken an interest in you," she'd said, and she'd almost smiled again. "Elphaba likes challenges."

Still playing clouded.

"It's all right, Master Tiggular," she'd whispered. "It's all right to be intelligent." And then she'd trained her eyes on him and lowered her voice even farther when she'd said, "You don't have to _be _that with me."

"And how did you notice?"

"Well, you can say a lot of things about me, Master Tigg—"

"Fiyero."

"Fiyero," she'd complied, nodding her head as if they were introducing themselves then. "You can say a lot of things about me, but I _notice _things."

He'd looked into her tunnels for eyes.

"Do you know where she is?"

"I don't," Nessarose had said, and she'd begun to wheel away. "We don't have many classes together." And then she'd added, "And I'd advise you not to go looking for her."

"Well, why not?" he'd pressed, standing up.

"That would just be a…debacle," she'd uttered. "A _mess_."

"Don't you want her to be happy?"

"I'm not sure that you're good for her," Nessarose had stated, without conviction; the statement was weak. "I'm not sure that…you just…do whatever you want, Fiyero."

"Nessarose…" She'd been maneuvering her chair about the bookshelves, getting herself away from him. "I don't love Galinda. And she doesn't love me."

Nessarose had stopped. "She may think she does."

"She doesn't."

"She does! She—Fiyero, please, I don't even know you…"

"He doesn't love you," he'd shouted. "Boq doesn't love you."

And time had halted, because this had made her fall silent, and they'd also been standing in a generally quiet library.

"He doesn't love you; he was just...he..."

But Fiyero had to stop.

She'd been so affected; her chest had concaved into the back of her chair and her knuckles had gone white on the wheels. And her face had been a bizarre, blank canvas that managed to portray a sense of rage and devastation and resignation just by freezing its porcelain features.

He'd been thinking, at that moment; he'd been too perceptive, too astute. These Thropp girls were—dare he say it—changing him, ever since the lion cub, and that little slice of time he'd had with Elphaba.

"And what is your purpose in telling me that?" Nessarose Thropp had seethed, dangerously low. Her features still had hardly moved.

"I'm telling you that it's not going to work out."

"That's exactly what I'm telling _you_. And you're going to go to great lengths to try to make it work out, and it's just not going to—"

"Exactly my point."

"So listen to me!"

"You're a walking contradiction, Nessarose Thropp."

She'd glanced away from him as it stung, slowly prying her hands off the sides of her wheelchair, and he'd realized what a slip he'd made.

"Oh, Nessa…" he'd said, "I didn't mean—"

"I know what you meant, Master Tiggular. It's fine."

She'd straightened and tucked her hair behind her ear, and she'd kept her tunnel eyes averted from him. "Are we done illustrating each other now?"

He'd gulped. "I'm sorry, Nessa."

"Don't be."

And as he'd begun to stride away, disillusioned and determined, he'd thought of himself and Nessarose Thropp when he'd said, "Look, I still am going to have to find her," and he'd thought to himself: Oz, it's amazing what lengths we go to.

Nessarose had nodded, so knowing, and laughed humorlessly. "I know."

He'd said, "I'll check Galinda's dorm," and then he was gone, ever so cool.

He'd felt guilty—and somewhat incomplete—when he'd left that girl alone again.


	2. The Second: After

**Lengths  
**

**Summary:**

**Fiyero had asked the Governor's daughter if she, per chance, knew where her sister was—twice, in fact—and both times, he'd thought to himself: it's amazing what lengths we go to.**

* * *

**002.**

The years had been utterly metamorphosing, and yet they'd changed nothing at all.

In some ways, he had reformed himself, become the noble, gallant Captain his nation practically venerated; he'd been sturdy, and unflinchingly righteous, and more than anything, he'd _cared_. More than anything, he'd _tried. _As it happens, he, in actuality, had proved himself quite intelligent—not far from sagacious, in fact, when he'd _tried. _

In that respect, the years that had lapsed between Elphaba and the Wicked Witch of the West had rendered him incommensurable.

He'd thought, however, that these alterations were only right, that they were required. He hadn't found his reformation to be anything but scarcely sufficient. In reality, he'd been playing the exact same role as before, only it had been grossly aggrandized.

He'd thought it revolting.

He'd also found his reformed self to be virtually analogous to his charismatic yet detrimentally careless university-age self, in that both individuals, ever since the lion cub, had only one simple goal.

And following his induction into the Gale Force, following his promotion to Captain, following his supposedly revolutionary reformation, he'd still been no closer to finding her.

It had been three years, and his steadfast persistence had been waning. He'd been desperate, and in that desperation, he'd somehow possessed the audacity to take a suggestion from an insolent, juvenile member of his squad with some level of seriousness.

The boy had offered that perhaps a trip to Munchkinland would prove telling; it was, after all, the genesis of the Witch's very wickedness, as it was the birthplace of the ghastly woman herself. And Fiyero had remembered some of the innuendo he'd detected circulating about the Emerald City, concerning a certain set of dire political happenings in Munchkinland, and the supposed rise of a tyrant—a sister to the Witch, they'd said. He hadn't been sure how much they really knew, or how to interpret that statement.

Fiyero had recollected a girl from Shiz University, with a wheelchair and bizarre insights and ominous tunnels for eyes, and he'd remembered interacting with her once and then leaving that girl alone.

That is how Fiyero Tiggular, Captain of the Gale Force, had wound up standing in the narrow, tenebrous halls of the Governor's Mansion in Munchkinland, the too-thin material of a door the only thing standing between him and that _girl_—woman—that he'd known for ten minutes to be Nessarose Thropp.

The servant, barely four feet tall and undeniably tremulous by nature, had guided Fiyero warily through the corridors with nothing but the tentative light of a candle. She'd halted with a squeal when they'd reached the foreboding chambers of the Governor, but Fiyero hadn't been sure if she'd been frightened by her dictator, the cool disconcerting night outside, or the presence of the Captain of the Gale Force at such a time, in such a place.

She'd disappeared into the chamber, and Fiyero had been abandoned with his thoughts for what seemed to be a long while.

And then, "Captain," came the hissed, high-pitched whisper. "She…she told me to tell you that…she doesn't."

"What?"

"She said, 'tell the Captain that I don't.'"

"Did you inform her as to who I am—I mean…how she knows me?"

"Yes, Captain," the servant had squeaked. "I said you were Fiyero Tiggular, if that's what you mean. Master Tiggular from Shiz."

Fiyero had gulped, but no other sign of ambivalence was disclosed. He'd simply stated, "Let me in," with all the resolve that he'd needed to shatter that servant.

The Munchkin had disappeared; the pitter-patter of her footsteps had been lost in the dark and the light from her candle had diminished and vanished in a matter of just a few pivotal moments.

Fiyero had been entirely and somehow not entirely alone, and the door had been open.

The door is open, he'd said to himself. Do you want to find her or not?

He'd slid into the room, allowing his heart and a peculiar mixture of his newfound sagaciousness and his old stupidity to guide him past the threshold. He'd glanced around at the Madame Governor's lavish and so cold, desolate quarters, and he'd caught a glimpse of an ornate wheelchair—a throne, of sorts, a prison. He'd remembered what he'd told her that one insignificant day, how he'd shattered her world.

He'd thought to himself: it's amazing what lengths we go to.

"It's awfully dark in here," he'd said.

Her voice had echoed from behind the red velvet walls she'd enclosed herself in, and he'd sympathized, for a brief moment, with the Munchkinlanders and their intimidation. "I don't know anything," was what had slithered out, and the voice was low, almost hoarse. "You know that."

He'd looked back at the open door and considered fleeing, but the hallway had seemed more deriding, more menacing, even, than the young Governor Thropp. "Is it all true?" he'd sharply asked. "Is it true what you're doing here? How long have you been in power?"

She'd given him no advantage, not even a signal. The impenetrable mass that was her and her gilded armor had not dared to quiver.

"How much of it is true? What I've been hearing in the Emerald City?" he'd pressed. "Would you just turn around?"

Too much time had passed before the golden wheels had rotated once, and she'd allowed him a view of little more than her profile. He'd expected her to have changed.

But the first thing he'd noticed was that the newfound Governor was virtually analogous to the fascinating Governor's daughter he'd spoken to briefly those years before. Same long, smooth hair, same gracefully slender torso and artful fingers as extensions to arms toned by years of sustaining her own perdurable confinement. Same dark tunnels for eyes.

Her hair had been longer, of course, and fuller, wilder; she'd seemed more womanlike, in a nearly diaphanous nightdress that did nothing to disguise her as a sheltered, oblivious schoolgirl anymore.

Her eyes, however, had been the same.

The very image of her—the very thought—had a shockingly profound effect on him. He wasn't able to define it.

"Most of what you've heard," she'd said, "is probably true."

He'd torn his eyes away from her form and he'd choked out, "The laws? The taxes on imports and exports? Is it true you're a recluse, and you don't make public appearances, and you don't address the people's concerns? What is more prevalent to you than your people, Madame Governor?"

Her eyes had seemed to spark at the title; her nostrils had flared. It had looked as if it had taken every ounce of her muscular strength to prevent her chest from concaving into the back of her chair.

It had been so familiar to Fiyero, and he'd thought: it's amazing what lengths we go to.

"You're lying to yourself, Nessarose."

"Please, Captain," she'd spoken, in a monotonous drone. "You're the most deceptive person I know."

He wasn't able to argue.

He'd entreated her, rather pitifully, "Just tell me if you know anything. _Anything_. I just want—I _need _to find her."

"She hasn't contacted me," she'd stated. "She hasn't come anywhere near Munchkinland, to my knowledge. I have no knowledge of her motives, her intentions, or her whereabouts." She'd turned towards him, cold. "Will that suffice?"

His heart had sunk many times, by that point. Enough times. In that moment, he had simply shut down. He'd made one of those old, quick schoolboy decisions, and he'd suddenly seen the woman as irrefutably alluring.

"Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are?"

"Yes," she'd said, immediately, but he'd watched her, rather doubtful.

She'd hardened her expression. "I suppose," she'd said, "I'm not really sure."

He'd taken the dubiousness and he'd latched onto it voraciously; he'd approached her with vigor reminiscent of a careless Winkie prince.

He'd realized he was kneeling, and his heart was pounding, and his head was nearly touching hers, brushing lightly against wayward strands of hair. It was dark hair, almost black, he'd realized. It'd be easy to imagine, easy to pretend.

"It's a rather capricious thing to do," he'd said. "I know."

"Master Tigg—Captain—"

"Fiyero." And he'd run his hand up her leg, feeling, in that moment, as though everything was rather futile.

"Fiyero," she'd said; she'd guided his hand away. "Don't. Do not touch me."

"It's stupid." He'd smiled, wryly, all to careless, and he'd braced himself on her chair as he'd touched his forehead to hers. "But we're kindred spirits, don't you think?"

"Don't touch me."

Her voice had been a hiss, an unadulterated manifestation of resentment, bitterness. She'd closed her eyes and reopened them.

But she'd simpered at him, when she'd reopened her eyes, seemingly feeling, in that moment, as though everything was rather futile. "Capricious?"

He'd grinned. "Capricious."

Her tunnels for eyes had narrowed, wrought with incertitude once more. "You're still with Glinda."

"Haven't I always been with Glinda?" he'd admitted, his voice dry. "It's a…meretricious relationship, at this point, don't you think? Always has been, actually."

"Meretricious."

"Meretricious. Capricious."

"Captain, you haven't changed at all. And you're shaking."

"That's you."

"…We're both shaking."

He'd smothered her with his torso and he'd locked her lips with his.

It had lasted for a while.

Then she'd forcibly shoved away from him, with something redolent of strength, which he hadn't anticipated. It had hurt in more ways than one, when she'd pushed him away.

"You're a hypocrite," she'd seethed, her voice barely audible. "You little fuck; I thought you loved her."

"Your sister? I do. And you love him. Right?"

She'd looked up at him with contempt and longing at the ends of her dark tunnel eyes.

"When's the last time anyone touched you?"

"You think I'm pitiful. You think I'm _virtuous_."

"I think you're nasty."

She'd laughed at him; it had been an inauspicious laugh, and it had provided no comic relief, and her white row of teeth had scintillated in the dimness.

He'd whispered, "Please."

She'd sighed, and she'd grappled with him but she'd let him kiss her again. The grappling morphed quickly into clutching, and she'd seemed strangely well practiced, and they had soon become just as analogous to each other as they were to their former university selves, the remnants of two broken hearts melding into something oddly whole.

They'd spent the remainder of the night very lonely together.

* * *

It had been only momentary solace.

Fiyero isn't so sentimental of a man as to regret his actions, to inquire for atonement, of some sort. It had been only necessary, at that point. It had nothing, and yet everything, to do with his love for Elphaba. It had been only fitting, only right.

If anything, the two questionable interactions he'd had with her sister had made him cherish Elphaba more. It had been only necessary.

He thinks now, as he waits underneath the rickety floors of Kiamo Ko for his dream to finally come to fruition: it's amazing what lengths we go to.

It's the first time, since that night, Nessarose Thropp has even crossed his mind. He contemplates how things eventually played out.

He, for the lengths he'd gone to, had been rewarded with a night in the forest—a single, utterly blissful night—and a promise. It had been an impetuous promise, but a genuine, tangible promise all the same. A believable promise. He'd been gifted with his night and he'd made his promise, and she'd died at dawn.

He contemplates that now, and he contemplates the lengths that they had gone to, separately and mutually, and he contemplates the fact that they, in the end, were distorted kindred spirits somehow.

It strikes him as unjust.


End file.
